White Breasted Wood Swallows Julia Creek Australia

White Breasted Wood Swallow Julia Creek Qld

The winds have come wailing across the black soil plains, hurling dust and leaves over the town.  The white breasted wood swallows cling to the power lines, turning enquiring faces to me when I try to photograph them.  A few weeks ago as I meandered around the local cemetery they tried to distract me by flying away from their nests.  When this didn’t work they swooped me, stridently advising my instant departure.  Now in spite of high winds they perch tidily around town, the neatest of birds in spite of aerial chaos surrounding them.

White Breasted Wood Swallows Julia Creek Qld

Claire Wood

Just Claire Wood

Email:  JustClaireWood@gmail.com

longlines   In The Atmosphere

Zebra Finches

Male Zebra Finch Julia Creek North Qld Australia

A flock of zebra finches has moved into the outskirts of town since the rains ended.  They are a busy flock with a noisy joyous song.  One moment they are ground feeding with utter focus, the next moment bouncing into the air as if with one mind and zipping off to some other destination a short distance away.  They are one of Australia’s most loved and most recognisable finches with a range that covers most of the Australian continent, so rare is the person who has not been fortunate enough to come across a flock of them at least once in a lifetime.

For more information about zebra finches go to the following websites:

http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=8678

Claire Wood

Just Claire Wood 

Email:  JustClaireWood@gmail.com

longlines,  In The Atmosphere 

 

Rainbow Bee-eaters

 I have a special fondness for Rainbow Bee-eaters.  Many years ago while looking after a friend’s European bee hive I was overjoyed when an entire flock of bee-eaters moved into a big gum tree in our front paddock and entertained me with their joyous songs, their colourful twisting flight.  Within what seemed an extraordinarily short time they decimated the bee population and then carelessly moved on, leaving me forsaken and friendless for my lack of guardianship of the beehive.  

They still entrance me and the bee eaters that have moved into the Julia Creek area are some recompense for the loss of the company of the sunbirds that live in my Bucasia back yard. 

I think they are nesting near the waterhole at the free camp, burrowing into all that softened clay beside the creek.  One of them swooped me the other day.  I have never been swooped by a bee-eater before.  They seem to be a usually placid bird.  If they are nesting does this mean the end of the all too brief rains?  Residents here are hoping for February rains to see them through the Dry.  This area is has been drought declared for a long time now.  Bee-eaters are supposed to nest only before and after the Wet. There are a lot of Bee-eaters along the banks of creeks and rivers here. Hopefully they consider this period the before the Wet.

Rufous Throated Honeyeater, White Bellied Cuckoo Shrike, Willie Wagtail

 Early one morning on the day following my son’s arrival back in Australia after three years working overseas he emerged grey faced and jetlagged from his bedroom muttering, “I can’t believe how noisy Australia is.”  As we were then staying 15 minutes from town and the nearest neighbour was almost a kilometre away, I was confused.  He said, “The birds. Australian birds must be the noisiest in the world.” 

I’m not sure how true this is, but in the Australian bush there are dozens of small birds that add layers of sound to the environment.

Yesterday afternoon we made the mistake of taking a picnic out to a floodway on the Old Normanton Road.  Why a mistake?  The sky was blue, the birds were singing, the creek was running, and there were flies in the millions.  Trying to breathe without inhaling a fly was difficult enough, trying to eat without taking in a mouthful of flies was an impossibility.  

Insects are breeding by the billion in the west at the moment.  The trees and grasses are flowering and the bird noise could wake the dead.  So there was some compensation for the discomforting flies.  Peewees, magpies and crows were making a racket.  The usual black kite keeping a close watch on me was joined by a pair of white bellied cuckoo shrike perching high on dead branches and a rufous throated honey eater hiding in the spikey foliage of a Prickly Acacia.  Meanwhile a willie wagtail chattered and complained when I drew too close to her nest.

When we arrived home we had to vacuum out the hundreds of flies that had ended up in the car.